Talk:Taric/@comment-125.60.241.233-20120616131504/@comment-5200450-20120625032449
Ok I think we can all agree that the main objective of the game is to get the enemy nexus destroyed, Right? The way to do that would be kill the enemy minions and either kill or force recall on the enemy champs in lane, so you can get your minions near the turret to take all the damage (so far so good?). Then you knock down the turret and repeat the same steps until you are at the nexus. Becoming more careful the closer you get for ganks from the jungle (warding helps alleviate this). Then you attack the nexus and destroy it unless they surrender first. So the first step would be kill the minions and harass the champs (still clear?). But, now you hit a road block because as a support you aren't suppose to kill the minions because your carry needs the money. So instead you are doing other helpful stuff like warding, helping harass the enemy champs in your lane, counter warding, looking for MIAs, and watching dragon/baron. In no means is this a bad thing, but how does this help your minions move forward so you can take down the turrets which appears to be part 1 of the objective of the game? Then comes items for you as a support, most common are gp5 items (more gold useful), boots (move faster useful), the aura items (slightly help you, slightly help team decent(could be better items, plus other champs could get it, just saying)). and wards so you can do your new role. Then this zero creep score metagame kicks in and that's what you do for the majority of the game, until an obvious difference in teams appear (who has more kills, managed to get more dragons, knock down more towers, etc.). Then the game usually ends in a surrender or possible nexus actually destroyed for the team on the better side. This middle part is when the "sit back, do nothing" feeling really kicks in. You say to yourself "Look I have a nice amount of wards around, destroyed a bunch of enemy wards, and help us gank the enemy at dragon a time or two, and help get some dragon kills ourselves", but as you watch the map for MIAs you probably notice no difference since the beginning except maybe a tower or two is down. Everyone is still fighting in the middle of their lanes not any further into the losing side (like near the destroyed turret). You feel like you just jumped on a treadmill (I'm running but I'm not going anywhere?). Of course you are probably more enthralled in your warding/counter-warding, other helpful stuff role, but you probably noticed it a time or two. This is what gets most people bored of supports. Not everyone will say "Hey great job on that ward by dragon it really helped us avoid that jungler gank." or "Hey I got a really nice head start compared to the enemy carry (got an IE and most of a PD, where the enemy only has a single B. F. Sword) so feel free to take a minion or two" They don't get any instant/quick gratification from doing all this stuff or a nice gesture like an extra 20ish gold every 30 seconds (the carry give up farm? blasphemy). Where as the other lane champs can become happy about their ability to kill their opponent faster/safer, or the jungler on their new clear speed because of new items, or their ganks becoming more potent. Most people thrive for that kind of thing, thus they feel like they are doing nothing, when they don't get it. @Senario (P.S. I play tanks as supports so my opinions could be flawed for the squishier supports) the carry dying was meant to be like an oddity (jungler gank, they made a mistake and tower dived or a minion died a little to quick and the turret got a shot off real quick, or maybe a DoT on them finished them off (Zilean's time bombs, ignite, maybe stepped into a trap, etc.)) My opinion for supports sitting back and doing nothing comes from my explanation up top, you help make the game easier to win, but you don't actually do something to win it (you're NOT going to be the AP carry that kills the enemy's AD carry before they can do their thing, you're NOT going to be the AD carry that slaughters the other team, you MIGHT help disrupt a teamfight (could've stunned a minion by accident as Taric), or save a teammate with a small 200hp heal (due to base heal amount because of no bonus), it's small victories not big ones, you're NOT going to help the minions move forward on the lane, you're NOT going to knock down the turret easily(low damage)). But you could do a couple little tweaks to make it easier. Items mattering for carries (your third point)... If it's my job to help prevent the carry from dying how do I do that if the jungler ganks along with the AD carry and enemy support? Best I could do is sacrifice myself so that the carry can get away which might not work depending on potential CCs or gap closers the enemy might have allowing them to catch my carry and kill them. If the shields scale off of resists better than AP then why doesn't the carry get any to help it out, they should know that right? Sure damage is great but it doesn't matter if the AP carry gets their burst off and kills them instantly (that's their job) because the shield did nothing and the carry's base resists are low. I admit Aegis can be a useful item for a support provides a lot of nice things I get it on most of my tanks like Rammus, Leona, or Taric. Rushing Shurelya's Reverie can be a bit of a risk in my opinion because unless you always remember to use it's active, you just got rid of a gold income to help afford wards for some extra health and CDR. Locket of the Iron Solari, could have it's uses but still, I go with Randuin's Omen for tanks because that's what would be better for them. As for getting CDR from boots I have to admit that it never occurred to me I always just get Merc's as I always play tanks. You have the right to your opinion of unconventional supports being limited to tanks. My opinion however would be allow more unconventional supports. If you let all kinds of different play styles in, the game becomes more entertaining because you never know what to expect. For example an unconventional support I play that isn't a tank is Lux. By being support I do the regular jobs (warding, counter warding, checking dragon, etc.), but I now also have the ability to help mid along with supporting the bottom carry. Supporting the AD carry would be shielding them and harass the hell out of the other carry with Lucent Singularity or even Light Binding. For supporting mid I could run halfway up the river and use Finales Funkeln when they are at half health to give our mid a bigger advantage or even let them finish the enemy mid off before they can run away. For me the idea of helping doing damage in lane keeps the competitive feeling going. It feels like I'm helping reach the objective of the game stated above not just making the win easier. For mobafire guides I was referring more to this one http://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/build/ranged-ad-breakdown-and-analysis-187257. Which you will notice in the comments I try to raise the same point in regards to carries (same username as on here). How can we add some variety to the game other than like having a two people on top because no one is good at jungling on solo-queue. QSS is the best defense against a heavy CC enemy team? Umm what do you mean by heavy? For me heavy would be like three hard CC (stuns) or 5 light CC (includes slows). So QSS is the best defense, ok, let's see say the enemy's carry is Ashe she uses her ult on you, no problem you use QSS, but then she slows you with Frost Shot ok now you move a little slower could be hazardous but so far so good. Then seconds later a giant robot hand (Blitzcrank) grabs you and pulls you very close to the enemy carry and turret, now your QSS looks pretty bad because it was on cooldown thus you couldn't stop Blitzcrank's Rocket arm and now the high physical damage from Ashe, Blitz, and the turret will most likely kill you. Good positioning > building survivalability possibly depends on the enemies champs in my opinion. Carry stands so that the support is near (let's say the support is Taric). Taric gets his stun off on the enemy carry who was hitting Taric's carry, then enemy's support (Alistar) manages to come up pulverises both of Taric and his carry, and then gives the carry a nice big nudge (headbutt) closer to his side of the map. Of course something went wrong with warding or something if Alistar manages to sneak up like that. But still some defense might save you long enough for the support to do something. "If you are melting instantly, then you and your team are doing it wrong." Seems a little harsh, for example Say I'm playing one of my tanks, and I still get melted rather quickly, the obvious problem would be lack of armor/magic resist, that would come from lack of good tank items (Aegis helps but only for early game). An obvious reason for not having good tank items would be not able to afford them. With good armor items running at 2775g for Frozen Heart, or 3075g for Randuin's Omen, and good magic resist items running at 2715g for Banshee's Veil, or 2610g for Force of Nature. Of course you would only need about one of each... but that's still a lot to gather from gp5 items, assists if you manage any and carry-not-here farming. "Having the completed damage item makes a difference." Ok still doesn't seem right in my opinion, my job as a support is to keep the enemy off of my carry because they are squishy. Ok best way to do that is harass them when they get too close, of course without tower diving or over extending too much. (Or am I wrong?) So my move would be to jump on them and give them a big hit to tell them to back off. Let's say I'm playing as Leona and the enemy has a Soraka or Taric support. I would jump on the carry with Zenith Blade, while in the air activate my Eclipse to boost my armor and magic resist and then, use Shield of Daybreak to stun the carry while dealing extra damage. Then after that retreat a little in case I'm too far ahead or keep hitting them and make them regret it. Ok so let's say I manage to get the jump with Zenith Blade but in mid flight I either A get silenced by Soraka or B stunned by Taric. Now I'm sitting next to the carry without A having my boosted defense stats and B not having him stunned. Now the carry can either try to finish me off before I can use my abilities again or just keep hitting the carry (meanwhile I would probably be a little lower level then the carry say almost four while the carry is level four). Odds are the carry will turn and burn me to the ground, then go back to the carry. Or optionally I could have gotten my combo off perfectly (Soraka used her silence to give mana, Taric was slightly out of range to stun, etc.). Now the best hope would be to get the carry to help me in harassing the carry for being too aggressive. This would allow us to either kill or seriously injure the carry before the support could react. However they might be too keen on getting the damage item thus instead of helping me hurt the enemy carry they decide to get a couple of last hits on minions. Now this could go horribly wrong for me because A the carry is no longer stunned/CCed and B the enemy support is now ready to help beat me up. Now the best solution would be to tell the carry to run and sacrifice myself if need be so they can get away. But they could be thinking "come on just 2 more kills and I can get my BloodThirster" and so they are waiting for a couple more last hits, then going to recall, so they might ignore it thinking I can handle it and escape while they get the money for that offensive item before helping me. so option A the enemy carry gets farm from killing me, option B the enemy carry and possibly even support get hurt but now the carry must wait for the next minion wave to show up to get their last amount of gold, or Option C the enemy carry gets farm from killing me and manages to either zone or kill the carry because they were too enthralled on that damage item. Plus are you saying that once they get the damage item (say BloodThirster) nothing can stop them. Because I'm pretty sure a good lane pair or gank could stilll drop them easily due to having no bonuses to resists (except for maybe aegis of the legion).